170 
The late Mr. H, M. Jenkins. 
Her sons were educated at Mr. Browning's school, near Bath, 
where they were known as extremely clever boys, noteworthy 
especially for extraordinary aptitude and ability in mental 
arithmetic* After school, which he left in 1854, Henry Jenkins 
was engaged for awhile in Mr. Box's office ; but this, amid the 
dusty atmosphere of a corn and seed warehouse, was not the 
best place for one in whom his lifelong asthmatic trouble had 
already declared itself ; and on medical advice he was sent on 
a voyage for his health, acting as barter clerk on one of Messrs. 
Burford and Dyer's ships, trading to the West Coast of Africa. 
The duties of this office were discharged by him with perfect 
satisfaction to his employers ; and, returning with improved 
health, he obtained a situation in the office of ^lessrs. T. and A. 
Warren, manufacturing chemists, of Bristol. Here at length he 
entered on the work of self-education in chemistry and other 
branches of science in which his occupation was concerned ; 
and, an eager student from this time of various branches of 
natural history, he was happily ready for the next step, for 
which the opportunity soon arose. Professor T. Rupert Jones, 
who was then Assistant Secretary of the Geological Society in 
Somerset House, tells me that a clerk in the adjacent Govern- 
ment office, a cousin of Henry Jenkins, had brought him 
fossils which had been unearthed during the drainage works 
in his neighbourhood at Peckham ; and, through the acquaint- 
ance thus casually established, he had acquired the earliest 
intelligence of a situation in the rooms of the Geological 
Society as assistant in the library and museum ; and young 
Jenkins gladly jumped at the opportunity which thus arose of 
a removal to London. 
His employment on the staff of the Geological Society was a 
new beginning of his life ; he there came under training at 
once strict, appreciative, and kind ; his duties under this super- 
vision had to be systematically, punctually, and perfectly dis- 
charged. New duties grew up for him as his quality and 
capability were realized, and ample opportunity was given him 
for further scientific education. Professor Rupert Jones, his 
chief, who soon became his friend, tells me that during this 
period he was a laborious student in the adjoining King's College 
class rooms, and at the Royal School of Mines in Jermyn Street 
— permitted for that purpose to use time during college hours, 
* Mr. Browning gives mc the following note : — H. M. Jenkins entered this 
school when he was about ttn years of age, and remained until he was about 
fifteen. He was a very quick boy, and his promotion in the school was rapid. 
As an arithmetician he was unequalled. His great forie was mental calculation. 
He required neither pen nor pencil for answering abstruse questions, and it ia a 
tradition here that, if you gave him a dozen columns in compound p.Jditiou, he 
would give the answer almost directly. 
